The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today said it monitored the private email accounts of nine agency whistleblowers starting in 2010 to determine whether any of them leaked confidential information to the public.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, asking a court to force the agency to take action against Google over planned changes in the company's collection of personal data.

Amid widespread concern about its new privacy policies, Google is now facing criticism over an offer to give users Amazon gift certificates if they open their Web movements to the company in a program called Screenwise.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has sent warning letters to the makers of six mobile apps used for background checks, saying the apps may violate a consumer credit protection law.

Microsoft today wrapped up a three-day campaign against rival Google by claiming its newest browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), is superior in stopping users from being tracked by online advertisers.

Digital rights groups in Europe have called for a ban on blanket data retention after a leaked internal memo from the European Commission admitted that there are significant problems with the current E.U. Data Retention Directive.

Google does not plan to delay its new privacy policy despite calls from Europe's data protection watchdog.

Data routinely gathered in Web logs - IP address, cookie ID, operating system, browser type, user-agent strings - can threaten online privacy because they can be used to identify the activity of individual machines, Microsoft researchers say.

While apologies from BP to the world regarding its environmental disaster and even from a U.S. Congressman to BP have stolen headlines of late, the tech industry has not been without its fair share of apologies during the first half of 2010 either.

The continuing saga of Google's wireless snooping and the maelstrom it's generated won't end anytime soon.

Facebook deserves plenty of blame for messing too much with its privacy settings, but no amount of fixing will stop people from embarrassing themselves on the Internet.

Want an expert lesson in how to respond without actually responding and how to apologize without saying you're sorry? Then you need to read Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg's quasi-mea culpa in today's Washington Post. Do it now; I'll wait.

New Yorker Barry Hoggard draws a line in the sand when it comes to online privacy. In May he said farewell to 1251 Facebook friends by deleting his account of four years to protest what he calls the social network's eroding privacy policies.

Facebook's privacy problems reportedly have the social network rethinking its approach, and a new poll suggests that the threat of user decline is real, but don't expect a mass exodus any time soon.

Google is cleaning up its mess after the company says it mistakenly collecting browsing data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks as part of its Street View project.

Facebook wants to know "What's on your mind?" Twitter asks "What's happening?" But that's getting old already. The burning question for the next wave of social networking is "Where are you?"--and services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, and Loopt want you to use your smartphone to answer it.